With all the attention being on ‘Dry January’ at the beginning of this month, an alternative health awareness has passed us all by… Veganuary!
Veganuary is a charity inspiring people to try Veganism for January and throughout the rest of the year, depending how January goes for them! There seems to be varying reasons people are trying this, one being for the love of animals, another being people wanting a healthy start to the year and a whole other reason being people liking a new challenge so why not?
Towards the end of last year, we ran an article about our food trend predictions for 2018, one of which being veganism. With plant-based diets being a big discussion point in the media and with an ever-growing amount of vegan dishes appearing on restaurant menus. So, it makes perfect sense to see Veganuary creep into the media this month.
A Vegan diet can be packed with micro-nutrients, because following a diet such as this means consuming lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Most people in the UK do not get enough of the recommended fruit and vegetable daily intake. A well-planned vegan diet can help with this!
We asked our Development Chef how easy, or not, it is to adapt to a Vegan diet, he said: “Changing your diet to a Vegan one doesn’t mean you have to stop enjoying your favourite foods. For example, cheese is something a lot of people think they will miss the most on a plant-based diet. However, there is something called ‘Nutritional Yeast’ which is rather intriguing to me! This is a supplement many use to replace cheese as it has a very Parmesan / cheesy flavour. The easiest way to embrace a Vegan diet is probably to start off slow by incorporating substitutes into your diet over time, also start trying recipes that appeal to you!”
With over half a million people in the UK following a Vegan diet, the interest in what a vegan lifestyle entails have increased; restaurants, beauty and clothing companies have rapidly educated themselves to this demand. With a variety of readily available dairy and meat supplements the food industry has been getting creative with vegan menus. We look forward to seeing what innovative food creations are developed over the next year.
